


The Blossoming Springtime of Youth

by OperaticPierrot



Category: Naruto
Genre: BAMF Haruno Sakura, F/F, Haruno Sakura-centric, Lesbian Haruno Sakura
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-02
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-14 20:55:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29797773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OperaticPierrot/pseuds/OperaticPierrot
Summary: Fresh academy student Haruno Sakura wasn't expecting the turn that her life took when a book landed on her head during lunchtime, but it's hard to deny the results. Armed with her sharp mind, ridiculous chakra control, fierce will, striking lack of common sense, and inability to talk to pretty girls, Sakura will take the ninja world by storm.
Comments: 31
Kudos: 125





	1. Chapter 1

Haruno Sakura’s life changed when she was five years old, only three weeks into her first semester at Konoha’s Ninja Academy.

Sakura hadn’t been having an easy time. Oh, the classes weren’t difficult — she was already a very good reader and had an extraordinary memory, so none of the bookwork was a challenge at all. The physical side of things was a little harder, and Sakura thought that maybe she should be exercising more outside of school, but she hadn’t worked up the motivation to actually do it yet.

No, her problems were because of the other students. There was a group of girls that had decided to bully her for her large forehead, bookishness, and shy nature, and Sakura had no idea how to deal with them. The teacher either didn’t notice or didn’t care, and nobody in the class seemed inclined to step in, so Sakura had started sneaking out and eating her lunches in an alley near the Academy where nobody would see her. It didn’t have any windows overlooking it and it was a dead end after a single left turn, so it was the perfect hiding spot. Nobody could find her there, and nothing could hurt her there.

Sakura had just taken a bite out of her onigiri when the book fell out of nowhere and landed on her head.

“Ow,” Sakura mumbled, putting her onigiri back down in her bento box so that she could rub her head and pick up the book. “What’s this…?”

The lavender-colored book’s titled stared up at her, written in a simple but clean typeface: _Flower Garden: Amaryllis_. There was no description on the back of the book, but the author’s pen name was on the bottom of the front cover in the same simple font: _Shizu_.

On the other side of the village, Hatake Kakashi got home and discovered a small hole in the bottom of his shopping bag. A quick inventory of his purchases revealed only one absence: a brand-new novel by a woman attempting to break _Icha Icha_ ’s stranglehold on the porn market with her own lesbian-themed works targeted at women. He’d heard that the plot in the book was rather better developed than that in any of the _Icha Icha_ books — a genuine accomplishment as, contrary to popular belief, Jiraiya did tend to write fairly gripping stories, which Kakashi enjoyed just as much as he did the erotic parts of the books. He let out a sigh — he would need to pick up a new copy the next time he was at the bookstore, given he had roof-hopped across half the village on his way home. There was no way he’d be able to figure out where he’d dropped it.

Sakura was oblivious to all of this as she cracked the book open as she began eating again — she had already memorized her textbooks, so it’s not like she had anything else to do while she ate. She found herself engrossed in the story, following along as the protagonist grew from an average kunoichi into a world-renowned hero as she fumbled her way through a budding relationship with her best friend. Portions of the book caused her cheeks to burn red, but she kept reading — it was a whole world she had never imagined, and before she knew it she heard the sounds of Academy students rushing down the street past the alley and heading home. A look at her watch told her that she had skipped half of the day’s classes, and she had to hold in a scream — her parents were going to kill her if they found out!

Happily for Sakura, the school didn’t seem to have informed her parents. What that said about her teacher’s opinion of and care for her, Sakura didn’t really want to think too hard about. The entire time she was eating dinner with her parents, her thoughts couldn’t help but drift to the lavender book hidden at the bottom of her bag. She wasn’t stupid — she knew that she wasn’t supposed to be reading a book like that at her age, even if shinobi children _did_ mature much more quickly than civilians due to the influence of active chakra use — but… how had it come to her? It’s not like somebody could have thrown it out a window. Sakura had never been particularly religious, but even she could tell it was a sign from the gods — if she wanted to be half as awesome as Tsukuyo was in the story, she needed to start taking her training seriously outside of class. She couldn’t just think that she should be exercising — she needed to actually do it.

After dinner, Sakura didn’t work on finishing the last third of the book, even though she really wanted to. Instead, she went back into the yard and started working on the physical regimen detailed in her textbook. It wasn’t something that they’d reached in their class yet — it was near the end of the textbook, so it probably wouldn’t come up until the end of the year — but that didn’t matter. Sakura was going to be the best she could be!

* * *

Sakura woke up the next morning at the perfectly reasonable hour of five in the morning. She’d set her alarm so that she would have plenty of time to exercise for a few hours before class started, and she was determined to make the most of that time. Unfortunately, as she learned half an hour later, she hadn’t counted on the fact that she just didn’t have enough stamina to exercise for very long, especially when she was sleepy from waking up early. She needed a way to build her stamina up quickly, but what would work for that?

Stepping into the shower, the pink-haired Academy student closed her eyes and tried to remember everything that the textbook suggested while she cleaned the sweat from her body. Daily exercise… well, she was doing that now! She just couldn’t do much of it yet, and that was the problem she was trying to solve. Healthy eating… Sakura would need to talk to her mother about adjusting her diet to follow the tips in the textbook, but that also sounded like a very long-term prospect. Sakura opened her eyes, a smile breaking over her face. The book had said that wearing evenly-weighted clothing could be used to train your strength, speed, and stamina while you were going about other activities. Even that would probably take some time to get results, but she bet it would be faster than the diet thing and that it would go well with her daily exercise.

Sakura had a skip in her step as she exited the shower. She didn’t know how much weighted clothing cost, but she hadn’t been spending her allowance or gift money for some time now. She’d wanted to save up so that she would be able to afford any ninja tools she might need to practice with, and this seemed to fit the bill. She collected her money from her sock drawer, dressed, and checked the time — it was nearly six, which meant that most businesses that catered to ninja should be open. She scribbled a note to her parents explaining that she was going to the store and wasn’t sure if she’d be back before she had to go to school, then set out.

* * *

It had taken nearly half an hour, but Sakura finally found a store that stocked what she was looking for. Unfortunately, none of the clothing was in her size, so she headed to the counter.

“Excuse me,” Sakura said softly.

“Can I help you?” the rough-looking man behind the counter asked.

“I was hoping you might know where I could get weighted clothing,” Sakura replied.

“In your size?” the man asked, scrutinizing her. “Didn’t know the Academy was starting you kids on that.”

“It’s not,” Sakura said. “I just…” Her eyes flickered down, then back up. “I need to work on my stamina, sir.”

“That so,” the man mused, stroking his chin as he seemed to measure her with his eyes. “Tell you what.” He grabbed a pad of paper and scrawled something down, then flipped to the next page and wrote something else. He tore both pages off and gave them to her. “Go to the store at that address and give the asshole who runs it the note. He’ll set you up with something.”

“Thank you very much!” Sakura said, bowing quickly.

“Thank me by staying dedicated,” the man scoffed. “The village needs more kids like you. You wouldn’t believe how many brats twice your age refuse to train at all.”

Sakura’s cheeks burned at the compliment as she hurried out of the store. She’d never thought someone would say something like that to her, of all people… It felt good, like she was really doing the right thing now. She looked down at the first paper she’d been given and found herself turning around and going the other way. Her watch told her she still had plenty of time.

* * *

The second store was a lot smaller and dingier than the first. Clothing of all sizes lined the aisles, and there were shelves full of paper, ink, and brushes. Sakura wasn’t entirely sure what to make of the setup, but ‘The Whirlpool’ was definitely at the right address to be the place she’d been directed to, so she pushed down her confusion and went straight to the counter.

“Get lost, brat,” the old man behind the counter scoffed. “This isn’t a daycare.”

“Um,” Sakura stammered. “I-I was asked to give you this!” She thrust the note she’d been given up at him.

The man accepted it with a reluctant sigh. His expression changed as he scanned whatever had been written down. “So. You’re looking for weights, are you?”

“Yes, sir,” Sakura said nervously.

The old man pursed his lips. “They don’t make weighted clothes in your size for a reason, pinky. Too much weight’ll ruin your growth, and brats like you don’t know when enough is enough.” He let out a puff of air. “That’s why that runt Sasakibe sent you to me. Seems it’s your lucky day — he’s calling in a favor I owe him. Come on back with me.”

Sakura warily followed the man into the back room of his shop, her heart pounding with nerves. She watched as he removed a brush and pot of ink from a small chest on his desk. “Lie down on your back,” he said brusquely, gesturing at an uncomfortable-looking bench. “And for the love of the fucking Kyuubi, stay still, no matter how much it tickles. I _will_ knock you out if I have to.”

Sakura did as she was ordered, entirely confused about what was going on. She squeaked as the man roughly lifted her shirt up to reveal her belly, and it was only the fact that he had _only_ exposed her belly that prevented her from screaming. “W-What are you doing?” she asked.

“How much do you know about seals, pinky?” the man asked.

“N-Not much, sir,” Sakura admitted. “I know storage scrolls are used to transport things, and explosive tags are also seals…”

“That’s right,” the man agreed. “Sealing’s a damn simple concept. Idiots like that brat Jiraiya like to dress it up in flowery language and make it sound all complicated, then complain when nobody wants to spend years learning the art they’ve been talking up as some huge pain in the ass. Bah! Every seal does exactly what the name says it does: it seals something. Everything else is just fluff. Conditional activation, connected seals, chakra transformation… who gives a shit. If you can get the damn thing to seal something away, you can do the rest of that just fine.” He brandished his brush at her. “I’m going to put a seal on you. It will seal your motion more safely than weights would, and it will adapt to ensure you’re always sealed by the same amount no matter how much better you get. I’ll show you how to turn it on and off when I’m done, and you should damn well make sure you practice with it off at least once a week. Only an idiot doesn’t take the time to get used to moving at their full speed or working with their full strength.”

Sakura’s eyes were wide. She hadn’t imagined that a seal could be used to seal something as abstract as movement, but if it could do that… “Could it be altered to help my chakra reserves, too?” she whispered. She hadn’t actually unlocked her chakra yet — that wasn’t something that they were going to do until the fourth month of class — but the textbook had said that the best way to increase the size of your chakra reserves was to use them as much as possible.

The old man paused and gave her a strange look. “It could,” he agreed slowly. “That’s not the kind of idea I’d expect a brat like you to come up with.”

“I read a lot,” Sakura mumbled, blushing.

“Hmm,” the man hummed, laying his hand on Sakura’s stomach, but then he frowned. “…your chakra’s not unlocked.”

“I only started at the Academy a few weeks ago,” Sakura admitted.

The old man snorted and moved his hand to the top of her head. In the next moment, she felt more energetic than she ever had in her life — the feeling slipped away almost as quickly as it had come, but she definitely felt more awake than she had before.

“There,” the man said. “Can’t put an active seal on someone who hasn’t unlocked their chakra if you want it to last. Now stay still.” He dipped his brush in ink and held it just over Sakura’s stomach. “…and two seals it is, brat. Your chakra reserves are pathetic — you’ll need every advantage you can get. The seal I’ll be using will suck your chakra away so that you only ever have access to a tenth of your reserves — you’ll need to disable it and eat a hell of a lot before any situation where you’ll need access to most of your chakra.”

Sakura did her best to ignore the sting of the insult and focus on the fact that she was being given a way to improve. The old man hadn’t been kidding about how much the brush was going to tickle, but she stayed as still as she could.

* * *

Sakura had no idea how much time had passed, but the old man finally gave a satisfied grunt.

“There,” he said, satisfied. “Brace yourself, pinky.” His hand slammed down on her stomach, and Sakura let out a cry as her entire body burned.

“What was that?” Sakura groaned. Not only did she feel like she was on fire, she felt extremely tired. Was that from her chakra being sucked away by the seal? She looked down at her stomach, but there was no sign of the ink that she knew had been there only a moment ago.

“Kick-starting a seal on your own body’s a bitch, and that was two of ’em at once,” the old man said, not an ounce of sympathy in his voice. “Best you get used to it. Any ninja who’s not a complete dipshit puts a few storage seals somewhere on their body.”

“Okay,” Sakura mumbled, committing the pain to memory as best she could.

The old man’s eyebrows rose at her easy acceptance, and something almost like interest flashed through his eyes. “Now, let me show you how to use those seals…”

Sakura was a quick learner, and her chakra seemed eager to do whatever she wanted it to do. It didn’t take her long to get the hang of things.

“Your chakra control’s not as bad as the rest of you,” the old man admitted. “I know jounin who’re worse. Mind, plenty of jounin are academy students in all but name. Fucking nepotism.” He fell silent, then a book appeared in his hand.

“How did you do that?” Sakura asked, startled.

“Kawarimi. One of the basic techniques they’ll be teaching you,” the old man said, voice oddly free of irritation. “If you’re smart, you’ll get it down to the point that you can do it with no hand seals at the drop of a hat, and then you’ll work until you can swap other things around. Once you can swap a kunai in your pouch with the air above your hand without looking, you’ll be able to call yourself almost passable at the technique. You’re only a master if you can drop your damn enemy in a volcano on the other side of the country.”

Sakura nodded seriously, memorizing the instructions.

“Quite the eager learner, aren’t you,” the old man huffed. He thrust the book at her. “You said you read a lot. Call this your payment for the seals — read this cover to cover, then come see me again.”

“Okay,” Sakura said, nodding. She thought it was better not to bring up the fact that the old man had said that he gave her the seals as a favor to the other shopkeeper. She followed him back out to the store, but paused before leaving. “Um, sir? What’s your name?”

“Tarou,” he responded dryly. “Uzumaki Tarou.”

“I’m honored to meet you, Uzumaki-san!” Sakura said, bowing. “I’m Haruno Sakura!”

“Yeah, yeah. Get out of here, pinky,” Tarou said, waving his hand in a shooing motion. “If you’re not at that Academy of yours in the next fifteen minutes, you’re going to be late.”

Sakura checked her watch and paled. She stuffed her new book in her bag and ran out the door, wincing at how much slower she was moving with the seal active. She had never been particularly fast, but she was at best half as fast as she had been before, and that was on top of how tired she was from having her chakra reserves so close to exhaustion. School was going to be rough.

* * *

School was extremely rough. Sakura had always been in the middle of the pack when it came to her times on the laps they ran for physical conditioning, but in her current state she was easily the slowest. She bit down on her tears as she found herself once more surrounded by her bullies as school let out.

“What’s wrong, Forehead Girl?” their purple-haired leader taunted. “Finally realizing you don’t belong here? After you skipped yesterday afternoon, I was hoping you wouldn’t be back… but now I’m glad you are, because watching you try to run was hilarious.”

Sakura refused to give the girl the satisfaction of seeing her cry. “I’m just not feeling well today, Ami,” she whispered. “It’s an off day.” But how many ‘off days’ would she have to suffer through before she improved enough that she could actually move with any real speed? Every one of those days would provide ammunition for her bullies, and if she was really unlucky her teacher might decide she wasn’t fit for the ninja program after all.

“An off day?” Ami laughed. “What kind of excuse is that? You’re just no good, and you know it!”

“Just wait,” Sakura murmured, the words meant more for herself than for the bully. “I’m going to be the best in the class.”

Ami snorted. “Whatever you say, Forehead Girl,” she scoffed. “Whatever you say.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The last few years (2020 especially, as I’m sure a lot of you can relate to) sure kicked my ass, but I’m trying to get back to writing regularly! My other stories do have updates in the works (shocking, I’m sure! That Which Holds the Image in particular has a number of updates outlined, and I’m really looking forward to getting those out), but this is something that I really just needed to write after the pain that was the last year-and-change.
> 
> While this story will definitely have its serious moments, it will on the whole be a fairly light and humorous work. There are so many stories out there where Naruto gets some little bit of inspiration and somehow trains himself into a jounin-crushing super-ninja before he even leaves the Academy — this time I’m giving Sakura a turn to be a jounin-level genin for once. Given people like Kakashi and Itachi accomplished that feat at a younger age, I don’t think that’s unreasonable — especially given people seem perfectly willing to accept far more from Naruto, even in stories where he doesn’t use the Shadow Clone technique to undergo an absurd amount of power-leveling. It’s Sakura’s turn to shine here! If this were a more serious kind of story I’d tone down the rate of her growth, but it’s not, so I’m just going to have fun and enjoy myself with it. Unashamed power fantasy all the way! (Don’t worry, though, she’s perfectly capable of making mistakes (in a high-int-low-wis lack of common sense sort of way, of course, as one might gather from the summary), and I’m already having a lot of fun with some of those in my prewriting for future chapters!)
> 
> Anyway, this is just gonna be a (hopefully) fun ride with no real fixed update schedule (I do have a bit of a buffer, but the speed at which I post that is going to depend on how often I pop out new chapters), but I hope it puts a smile on your faces. I always love hearing from readers, so feel free to drop comments!


	2. Chapter 2

It took Sakura a week where she spent every free moment she had exercising until she was about to pass out in order to move up from the bottom speed ranking to the second from the bottom. It took her five to get back to the lower-middle, and she still felt very tired, if not as much as she had at first. She supposed that meant that her chakra reserves were growing, and she couldn’t suppress an elated smile — her hard work was paying off!

If the seal really was keeping its drag on her body proportional, didn’t that mean she was twice as fast as she had been before? Her time was just over half that of the first-place finisher, Inuzuka Kiba, so… didn’t that mean she was the fastest in the class now? It probably wasn’t _quite_ that simple, but she didn’t want to test it in class to find out for sure — while she had followed Uzumaki-san’s advice and spent one day a week practicing with the seal off to make sure she was used to her current level of speed and strength, it would look strange if she suddenly shot up in the rankings and then dropped back down. She didn’t think it was against the rules to use a seal like this, but… it was her secret, and she didn’t really want anyone to know.

Of course, this meant that it was probably time for her to pay another visit to Uzumaki-san. Both her physical abilities and her chakra were recovered to her original level (or perhaps a little higher), despite the seals: she was pretty sure that made her twice as strong and fast, and meant her chakra capacity was ten times higher than it had originally been. Sakura, despite her excitement at such an enormous improvement, had to admit to herself that the latter feat was likely only possible because her original chakra reserves were so pitiful that a tenfold improvement was basically nothing. Her current unsealed reserves put her around the lower middle of the class, if the vague sensory abilities she’d been developing based on the section of Uzumaki-san’s book about seal analysis were any judge. Of course, there was that one boy, Naruto, whose reserves seemed to be so monstrously large that the entire class combined (teacher included!) couldn’t even begin to hold a candle to them, so Sakura figured her sensing technique probably wasn’t working correctly. There was no way that could be right, after all! Of course, he _did_ have the same last name as Uzumaki-san, so maybe he had some kind of seal like Sakura’s improving his reserves? For all Sakura knew ‘Uzumaki’ could be a common last name, but… Well, it wasn’t like it was really any of her business, in the end.

What it all boiled down to was that she was ready to see what Uzumaki-san wanted from her: he had done so much for her, after all.

* * *

“Oh, it’s you,” Uzumaki-san said, giving Sakura a bored look. “I was starting to think you weren’t coming back.”

“I’m sorry, Uzumaki-san!” Sakura said, bowing deeply. “I was trying to get used to the seals!”

“Whatever,” Uzumaki-san dismissed. “So you’ve read the book?”

“I have,” Sakura agreed, following him into the back room.

“Then you should have no problem making a storage seal,” Uzumaki-san said. He removed a brush and some ink from a shelf and placed them on his desk, which already had paper on it. “Get started.”

Sakura swallowed as she sat down and closed her eyes as she tried to remember the design the book had shown for a basic storage seal. It wasn’t anything fancy, and couldn’t hold more than a few pounds of material, but she thought she could copy it.

She had barely started to make the first stroke when she found the brush ripped from her grasp.

“Whoever taught you how to hold a brush should be drawn and quartered,” Uzumaki-san snapped. “Like this, girl. Watch me.”

Sakura watched as Uzumaki-san demonstrated a series of strokes with the brush, then found the writing instrument shoved back into her hand.

“Copy those strokes,” Uzumaki-san ordered.

Sakura hadn’t even managed to put the brush to the paper before she found Uzumaki-san grabbing her hand and adjusting her grip.

“Hold it like that,” Uzumaki-san growled.

Sakura nervously tried the first stroke, but her hand shook and it ended up wobbly.

“Stay calm, girl,” Uzumaki-san said.

Sakura took a deep breath and tried to calm herself. When she felt her nerves had returned to a manageable level, she lowered the brush to the paper and began again. This time, Uzumaki-san remained silent as she proceeded through the entire series of strokes.

“Again,” Uzumaki-san ordered. He forced her to repeat the strokes at least a dozen times before finally allowing her to stop. “Passable for an infant,” he said. “Now make that seal.”

Sakura took a new piece of paper and carefully copied the seal from her memories.

Uzumaki-san barely glanced at it before he scoffed and tore the paper in half. “What the hell was that baby shit?” he asked. “I told you to make me a storage seal, not a pocket too small to fit a damn kunai.”

“But… that was the only design in the book, Uzumaki-san,” Sakura said.

Uzumaki-san rolled his eyes. “Of course it was, pinky! That seal is the base for all others — every damn seal an Uzumaki ever designed builds on that one. Don’t regurgitate it, use what you read to make me a damn storage seal! I want to be able to fit my desk in it! Even an idiot should be capable of that much.”

“I-I’m sorry, Uzumaki-san,” Sakura stammered.

“Never apologize for anything, brat!” Uzumaki-san snapped. “Own your choices and make amends with your actions!”

Sakura gulped, staring down at the extremely sturdy desk. It had to weigh at least a couple of hundred pounds. She tried to remember everything that the book had said, and hesitantly sketched out a new seal.

Uzumaki-san took one look at it and pointed at the upper-left segment. “Are you trying to kill us, girl?” he demanded. “That would have sucked us right in if we activated it, with no provisions for keeping living things alive.” He tore the paper to shreds.

Sakura flinched, then sketched another seal. This, too, was immediately destroyed after its most critical flaw was pointed out to her. It wasn’t until her ninety-seventh try that Uzumaki-san finally seemed to take the time to actually examine her seal. She hoped it would work — her wrist was cramping badly.

“This would almost be acceptable, if it had been the first one you made,” Uzumaki-san grumbled. “Activate it and seal the desk.”

Sakura hesitantly did as Uzumaki-san ordered, and the desk vanished in a puff of smoke.

“Now let it back out,” Uzumaki-san said.

Sakura did, and the desk was back.

“Be here at this same time every two days,” Uzumaki-san said. “We’ll see if we can’t get that idiot head of yours to do something productive.”

Sakura nodded. “Thank you, Uzumaki-san,” she said. She wasn’t entirely sure why she was going along with this — Uzumaki-san had no power over her, and he was extremely rude — but… the book had been fascinating, and as harsh as Uzumaki-san was, the potential that seals had was ridiculous. The book had spoken of advanced seals like the Second Hokage’s Flying Thunder God, which used seals to seal distance itself, allowing the technique user to teleport in the blink of an eye. The Fourth Hokage had modified it and used it to kill an entire army.

If Uzumaki-san was willing to teach her how to make seals, she wasn’t going to say no. She had vowed to be the best, and she would be.

* * *

A week later, she presented a journal to Uzumaki-san.

“What’s this?” the man asked, accepting it with a suspicious glare.

“My attempts at seal creation, Uzumaki-sensei,” Sakura said.

“Don’t call me ‘sensei,’” Uzumaki-san grumbled. “I’m not teaching you anything, brat. If you happen to learn anything here, it’s all on you.” He cracked the journal open. “Let’s see what kind of travesties you’ve come up with.”

Sakura waited nervously, fidgeting. After a moment, Uzumaki-san slammed the journal down on his desk and gestured for Sakura to take a seat. She obeyed immediately.

“So you’ve already started looking for the flaws in your own work,” Uzumaki-san said, voice flat. “Arrogant brat, do you really think you’re good enough for that yet? You have access to a seal master, but insist on working alone?”

“I’m so-” Sakura began, but paused. _Own your choices._ “How am I supposed to learn if I don’t?” she asked instead, only half-stuttering as she thrust her chin out defiantly. “I didn’t use any of the seals, and brought my notes here for your advice. It’s _because_ I have access to a seal master to check my work that I’m trying to come up with ideas on my own time, so I don’t waste the time I have here with you on things that I should be doing by myself.” Her heart hammered in her chest, and she was sure that it was obvious to Uzumaki-san that she wasn’t nearly as confident in her assertion as she was trying to seem.

For the first time, Sakura saw a smile flicker across Uzumaki-san’s face.

“Good,” he grunted. “For an idiot, you didn’t do a bad job. You missed most of the problems of all of them, of course, but that’s what I’d expect from a stupid brat. Now, for this first one…”

Sakura let out the breath she’d been holding but hid her smile as she paid close attention. Uzumaki-san was a grumpy old bastard (Sakura flinched as she thought the word, half-expecting her mother to burst into the room and scold her, but it fit the man), but he knew his stuff, and he clearly wanted to see her excel.

And excel she would.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait, it turned out to be a busier week than I expected... That said, the next chapter of _That Which Holds the Image_ should be up either later today or early tomorrow!
> 
> Some fun numbers about Uzumaki-style seal learners:
> 
> Number of tries to produce a ‘passable’ storage seal:
> 
> Haruno Sakura, age 5 (pupil of Uzumaki Tarou): 97
> 
> Uzumaki Tarou, age 8 (pupil of Uzumaki Kumiko): 176
> 
> Uzumaki Kushina, age 8 (pupil of Uzumaki Mito): 112
> 
> Namikaze Minato, age 14 (pupil of Uzumaki Kushina): 68
> 
> Hiruzen Sarutobi, age 6 (pupil of Uzumaki Mito): 82
> 
> Uzumaki Mito, age 4 (pupil of Uzumaki Ashina): 2


End file.
